


Peruvian Haircut

by dorothy_notgale



Category: Bride of Re-Animator (1989), Herbert West - Reanimator - H. P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: Ambiguity, Herbert without his glasses, M/M, No Body Horror, No Sex, Personal Grooming, Sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:43:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4646052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothy_notgale/pseuds/dorothy_notgale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan. Herbert. Razors. Peru.</p><p>Sometimes, these ingredients <i>don't</i> translate to a recipe for violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peruvian Haircut

**Author's Note:**

> Cleaned-up and expanded version of commentfic written during a Tumblr conversation with [SilverBird13](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverBird13/pseuds/SilverBird13).

Dan was glad for all the home haircuts of his childhood when he first saw Herbert angrily flipping the too-long fringe out of his face during a procedure. The patient would be dead soon, but Herbert didn’t see that as any reason to risk contamination of the results by using his _hands_ on his hair and then reintroducing them into the chest cavity. Holding that hair back from a brow damp with luminescent sweat as his partner worked had stirred an odd, nurselike feeling in Dan.

So he'd suggested a trim, and here they were: Dan swishing a comb in a kidney basin of water with a tieless Herbert perched on a rickety three-legged stool. He was unnervingly still and weirdly pliant under the blades of their fourth-string set of Metzenbaum scissors as Dan carefully nudged his head this way and that in hopes of achieving an actual shape besides “bowl” or “mullet.” (War zone or no, he couldn't imagine being responsible for Herbert looking like anything but Herbert.)

His partner's cervical vertebrae seemed barely contained by the translucent flesh at the nape of his neck; mundane substance stretched too thin over the enormity of what was inside.

At one point, Dan came to—he had grasped Herbert's jawbone in his left hand to better trim the offending front, and though their gazes would normally have met in that position (not that the position could be called normal by any stretch), without glasses those hazel eyes stared with impotent vagueness at the vicinity of Dan's face: a myopic fixed approximation of engagement. Dan had in the past wondered just how poor Herbert's vision really was, and whether the lenses were some form of shield rather than a medical necessity. Now, it seemed, he knew. As soon as they had access to proper supply routes, he should get the prescription and ensure that they had spare pairs. When he released his friend's head, it remained perfectly posed like that of a wax figure or mummy.

After the haircut, Herbert examined himself briefly in Francesca's borrowed makeup mirror. He gave Dan a chilly, measuring look and thanked him before remarking that it would have been just as efficient to begin wearing a bandanna.

Dan busied himself with wiping hair out of the scissors joint.

“Now, I suppose that it's my turn,” said Herbert from far closer than expected; Dan jumped and braced himself against their operating table.

“Your turn to what?”

Brushing cut hair from the back of his neck, Herbert unselfconsciously stripped off his no doubt itchy undershirt and threw it to join his glasses, Oxford and tie across the room. He leaned up, staring intently. His breath felt warm on Dan's chin.

“Your head is turning into a mop, and you could use a shave as well.”

The idea of those small cold hands combing over his skull, coating the column of his throat in disinfectant soap and then stroking a straight razor along it, exposing vulnerable flesh to the mountain air, perhaps slipping in a moment of carelessness to draw blood already flushed up to the surface... Dan shivered and turned away. “I thought I might just grow it all out.”

“Fine.” Herbert's wrist grazed Dan's khaki-clad hip like a cat's tail as he walked away. “Three weeks, then.”

“What?”

“I'll need mine cut again in three weeks.” His eyes looked even larger through his glasses.

Dan swallowed.

 


End file.
